Erected by the James B. Gordon Chapter
United Daughters of The Confederacy
October 1905
Winston-Salem, NC"

"As Southern soldiers of the War of 1861-1865 they share the fame that mankind awards to the heroes who served in that great conflict"

"In camp on fames eternal camping ground."

"Sleeping but glorious
Dead in fames portal
Dead but victorious
Dead but immortal
They gave us great glory
What more could they give
They left us a story
A story to live"

This memorial stands at one small corner of a busy courthouse, on a busy and usually crowded street. For over one hundred years it has stood, offering its message of defiance and honor to all that stop to receive it. As I took these photos I realized that for most the monument has become just a part of the background environment of a large city, a place for birds to perch momentarily before flitting off to another structure, another perch.

The sculpture has many features found on almost every CSA monument, and a couple of them point to the probability that even in 1905 the Civil War wasn't over for the members of this UDC Chapter. The Confederate flag is surrounded in laurel leaves and stands unbroken and unfurled. The soldier stands with bedroll and provisions pack ready to march. Bugles support an ammunition box, ready to call the troops to muster and into battle.

08/2006

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World War 1 Honor Roll

200 N Main St
Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina

"1917-1918

In Grateful Remembrance ofTHE FORSYTH COUNTY MEN
Who made the supreme sacrifice in the World War"

"This memorial erected May 30, 1921

by the Women's Club of Winston-Salem
and
The Clyde Bolling Post N255 American Legion"

Clyde Bolling wanted to be a soldier. As a youngster he dreamed of the adventure and as a teenager he convinced his father to sign an underage enlistment waiver. His first Army excursions took him to Mexico, chasing Poncho Villa back and forth across the border. When the first American troops embarked for France in World War I Clyde didn't let his family know, because he didn't want to worry his mother. She learned that he was in France when she spotted her boy in a photograph printed in the local newspaper.

Clyde Bolling died as the result of an aerial bombardment on May 11, 1918. He was a motorcycle messenger and was struck by shrapnel from the exploding bomb. His was the first body returned from France to Winston-Salem about three years after the war. In an attempt to start a generational tradition, his family donated his casket flag to the local American Legion post in 1944 with the request that it be used to cover the casket of the first returning remains from World War II.

It's unknown if those plans were indeed implemented, but the fact that the family of one soldier wanted to reach down a generation to support the family of the 'Next to Fall' is interesting. Obviously they realized something that most of us don't; we all share in the joy of freedoms, but few of us are ever asked to embrace the grief of the loss for the life given for that freedom.